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Very Tiny Motor: Nano-level
Daeron Meyer writes " ABCNews is carrying the story of the Boston College prof who took four years but just 78
atoms to create a tiny motor. The current problem is that the wheel get stuck after rotating 120 degrees. So, not much use yet, but it's a step."
These things are really cool, but they violate Strauser's Law. That is, they're smaller than a duct-tape molecule, and therefore not usable on a mass scale.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
You have atoms and molecules reversed, my friend. An atom is the building block from which molecules are formed. The motor is 1 molecule (most likely, or maybe 2 - they didn't say if the bit that turns is separate from the bit that it turns in) formed of 78 atoms. Ionic bonds are a crystal, which isn't really a molecule but a lattice of atoms; for example, table salt (NaCl) isn't a lot of NaCl molecules but a large lattice formed of sodium and chlorine atoms.
As for the motor 'reacting,' a spontaneous reaction is what happens when one higher-energy bond breaks and forms a lower-energy bond, thus releasing energy. This is the kind of reaction that needs to be worried about. (A nonspontaneous reaction requires that energy be added into the system, and even then it tries to release energy.)
As someone else pointed out, if the bond is covalent (which is formed by two atoms sharing electrons and is rather strong), it's not very likely to break from water. Water reactions are very different from dissolution; the nanomachine isn't likely to react with the water, particularly if it's made of silicon. After all, if silicates reacted freely with water, we'd be in a good deal of trouble, since glass (SiO2) is often used to contain water. Though SiO2 has a very low energy potential and doesn't react with much to begin with anyway.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
it's not just us who can be used for batteries -- any eukariotic animal that engages in phosphoralation (sp?) is a source of energy. however, using the human/animal as a battery is rediculous on a large basis (think Matrix here). every time you run through a level of the food chain, you lose a LOT of energy. it would be FAR more efficient to just have mitochondria supported -- not an entire organism. if that was impractical, then cells -- any cells, just about -- could be used far more efficently than an entire organism, who uses energy for transport/growing hair/living. (Matrix always bothered me -- I loved the movie, but the premise is completely impractical. if you suck the electricity out of the brain, then the brain can't DO anything. you die. you can't be in "the Matrix" anyways)
:) personally, I'd be more than willing to have nanites running around and using a bit of my ATP while they destroyed a cancer or something similarly threatening.
however, the nanites could refuel from your cells if they were in there for something else. convenient food source
Lea
Now, I am not a scientist, and perhaps it could be argued that every motor is powered at least indirectly by chemical reactions, but the specific type of chemical reaction at work here would tend to limit the applications of this little motor.
For instance, given the large number of chemicals that can be dissolved in water, you might not want to get it wet. Ever. At all. After all, if we're building on the less-than-100-atoms level, I'd say that every atom counts and losing even ONE to water (or whatever) would be devastating to the efficacy of the whole thing.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
One of the things that I didn't see mentioned in the ABC article (and is only briefly mentioned in the BBC article) is that the machine runs on ATP. ATP is the fuel generated by the human biological process known as the "Krebs cycle". (You get ~32 ATP from one glucose molecule.) This means, then, that we're building machines that can use humans as batteries... now where have I heard that story before?